


vulnera sanentur

by lemon_verbena



Series: duo | the auror au [1]
Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Auror Cormoran Strike, Auror-in-training Robin Ellacott, Aurors, First Meetings, Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 11:02:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20081131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemon_verbena/pseuds/lemon_verbena
Summary: There is a beat of silence, and Strike is aware that he should be replying to this woman, but he cannot look away from her face, or the large angry curse-scars that bisect her right eye and cheek. She faces him cooly, taking his measure, and Strike finds himself abruptly self-conscious of the rumpled state of his clothing, the fresh injuries on his face, the nest of his hair.“You’ll be the- new, my new-” Strike fumbles, unable to pull together the words he does not truly want to say.“I’m the junior Auror who’s been assigned to you, yes,” she says, and extends a hand to shake.





	vulnera sanentur

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired by the episode of Electric Dreams, "The Hoodmaker" which features Holliday Grainger, as to Robin's appearance. I don't have any more of this written or even planned out; I have no idea where it would go, as I don't usually go in for casefic, and I would have no idea how to write them going about solving crimes. But I couldn't let go of this AU, so I present you with a one-shot set in the Potter Universe. It seems right, taking JKR's characters and putting them in her other universe. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

“Explain!” Strike demands to the mirror hanging cloudy on the wall.

“I was under the impression that you had the capability to comprehend the written word,” his boss says, mild and amused. “But do correct me if I’m wrong.”

“You know what I mean,” Strike says, subsiding a touch. “What’s the business about assigning me a junior? I don’t need one and I don’t want one, there’s no reason to give me some fresh-faced newbie who thinks that because they shot off a few Protegos at the Battle of Hogwarts they’re ready to be an Auror.”

“I assure you that all our new juniors have been through the exact training that you underwent at the Academy,” his boss says, steel in her tone, “and if we waived NEWTs for some of them, it’s only because they have demonstrated proficiency.”

“And we’re not all quite so fresh-faced as all that,” a voice from behind him says, just as female and just as steely as the one issuing from the mirror. His boss’s image fades, and the last he sees of her is her lips upturned in sardonic amusement. He turns to see the person who is presumably his new, un-asked-for trainee. Junior partner. Whatever.

There is a beat of silence, and Strike is aware that he should be replying to this woman, but he cannot look away from her face, or the large angry curse-scars that bisect her right eye and cheek. She faces him cooly, taking his measure, and Strike finds himself abruptly self-conscious of the rumpled state of his clothing, the fresh injuries on his face, the nest of his hair. 

“You’ll be the- new, my new-” Strike fumbles, unable to pull together the words he does not truly want to say.

“I’m the junior Auror who’s been assigned to you, yes,” she says, and extends a hand to shake. He takes it, impressed despite himself at her firm grip and dry palm. She must be nervous, God knew he’d been nervous his first day, but she isn’t showing an inch of it. “Robin Ellacott.”

“Strike,” he replies, then adds, “Cormoran Strike.” So few people bother to call him by his given name, he thinks that someday he may just clean forget it. 

“Pleasure,” Robin Ellacott says, in a way that leaves him wondering if she means it, which is a good skill to have in his— their— line of work. 

Strike can feel the curdling embers of the previous night’s firewhisky in the back of his throat, and is entirely out to sea. He was planning to slog through his neglected paperwork this morning, and now… this.

“Would you like to sit?” he asks, gesturing to the chair that lives in the corner of his small office. She turns away to pull it up to the desk, and Strike represses the urge to pat at his hair or tug at his shirt. No use for it now.

Robin Ellacott sits and turns her gaze back to him, still apparently unruffled. He takes a seat in his own somewhat-rickety chair, and tries to take in the elements of her that he missed in his first go-round, which was derailed by the truly spectacular scars. 

She’s young, but he was expecting that. Reddish-gold hair, tightly braided and twisted up into a complex arrangement he can’t begin to guess at; she wears very little makeup, and hasn’t tried to cover the scarring with anything, no creams, no enchantments. She is wearing them- not proudly, but unashamedly, as though daring you to comment on them. Her robes are clean and of good quality, sturdy, cut for purpose and not for display, though the body beneath them seems fit enough, hinting at generous curves that are— ahem, entirely none of his business.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out into the silence. She blinks as if surprised. 

“I accept your apology,” she says immediately. 

“But you don’t know what I’m apologizing for, yet,” Strike says, not expecting to be let out of having to explain himself. He’s not yet met a woman who doesn’t like to watch him squirm when he is in the wrong— and he is, firmly, in the wrong.

“Well,” Robin Ellacott says, lifting one slim finger, her nails unvarnished. “Either it’s for the conversation I overheard from the doorway, in which you said you don’t want a junior, which you didn’t mean for me to overhear and which I cannot blame you for, since there are frankly far too many junior Aurors at the moment and they’ve been sending us out to seniors who aren’t ready or equipped for us, none of which is your fault.”

Strike is taken aback by the way she has taken stock of the entirety of the situation. He knows that there are plenty of juniors going out, but he hasn’t heard about other full Aurors being assigned juniors they don’t want.

“You didn’t want any junior, even before you knew who it was, so I know it’s not that I’m young or a woman or anything. And the second option,” and here he can see a hint of color in her face, the repressed edges of a blush, “is that you feel bad for staring at my face, which I can hardly blame you for, since it is the most common reaction to my face that I have these days, and if I took the time to be put out by every stare I would have no time left for more useful matters. So.”

She takes a breath and nods, looking down as she tugs smooth her robes, then looks back up to meet his gaze. Her eyes are a greyish blue that look like the sky in April, perpetually threatening rain. 

“In either case, your apology is accepted. We can move on with our conversation.”

Strike had been expecting.... something other than this. A young blowhard out for glory, perhaps, or a starry-eyed dreamer who thought that being an Auror was all about lofty ideals and not down-and-dirty realities. Those tended to make it through the Academy then wash out in the field training. 

Robin Ellacott, though, with her scarred face and firm handshake, she is neither of those things. Strike is tired and just a touch hungover and really not in the mood, but feels that he ought to at least hear her out before he sends her off. 

“You have a rather longer view than I’m used to, in a junior,” Strike says. 

“You haven’t met the current class, or the ones behind us, have you.” She says this in a way that makes it clear it is not a question. 

Strike shakes his head. “I’ve spent the past few years out of the country.”

She tilts her head a bit, inquisitive. “That might be it. I was going to say, you weren’t at the Battle or the aftermath.”

Again, not a question, which tells him that she in fact _was_ in the Battle, which does explain the scarring. 

“No,” he says. “I was undercover in another part of the world, and no, I still can’t talk about it, so if you want to know any more than that, don’t bother.”

Endless sand, screaming, flashes of light, blood, ricocheting curses, his leg several feet away from the rest of him— no, he wants to leave all of it behind. 

She frowns slightly and shakes her head. “No questions. We all carry things around with us, and I’m not the sort of person who feels the need to go rifling through other people’s luggage.”

Unspoken are the words, _I have quite enough of my own, I don’t want or need yours._

Strike nods and leans back a bit, glad that’s settled and ready to change the subject. “Ellacott. I don’t recognize the name.”

She relaxes, just slightly. They’re having a proper, interview-type conversation now; he is taking her measure, and isn’t going to try to send her off just yet, and they both know it. 

“You wouldn’t. My mum’s the witch, she met my da after school. His cousins’ve got magic and introduced them. My mum’s a McKinnon, Linda McKinnon, and her mum was a Weasley.”

“That explains the hair,” he says without thinking, and is startled but pleased as her face breaks into a smile for the first time.

“It does, doesn’t it,” she says. “And I have three brothers, and they all got nice boring shades of brown. Just me who got lucky, I guess.”

“I have a sister,” he offers, this crumb of personal information a peace offering. He finds himself liking this Robin Ellacott, against his will. “Nice sleek dark hair, none of this.” He gestures to his exuberance of curls, which is getting a bit too long and extra wild with it. 

She’s too well-mannered to laugh, but he can see the hint of it lurking around her eyes. The scars on her face pull a bit, but it’s as though a switch has been flipped in his brain: instead of scars standing out against a face, suddenly she simply has a face with some scars, just one more thing, as much a part of it as nose or eyebrows. 

“My scars,” she said, suddenly, as though she can read his mind. _Is she a Legilimens?_ he thinks, slightly panicked.

“No,” Strike says. “I’m sorry for— my reaction. They’re none of my business.”

She looks at him, searching, for a moment. “I didn’t get them in the Battle,” she says, and he wonders if that’s what she was planning to say. “That’s what everyone assumes. But I got them before.”

_Before._ That meant….

She’s still looking at him, and Strike finds it unsettling. He’s much more accustomed to being the one with the cool gaze. 

“I’m not as young as you probably think, either.”

He didn’t ask. His mouth opens, and he doesn’t know what he’s going to say until he hears himself say it.

“What House were you?”

She doesn’t flinch. Plenty of folk these days do, because it’s become even more of a signal, a ticket to claim your way in or a noose to fight your way out of. 

“Hufflepuff. And you?”

“Gryffindor. Did you fly at all?”

“Why?” she asks. “Is there a lot of flying to being an Auror?”

“No,” Strike says, “I was just wondering. You have the build for it.”

She grins at him now, all her teeth out. “I did. Highest-scoring Hufflepuff Chaser in years. I subbed for the Seeker a few times, but it wasn’t my strong suit.”

“No?” Something about her seems to light up inside, talking about Quidditch. Seekers tend to be the fastest, most reckless flyers. He would have thought it would fit. 

“I’m good at flying, but I’m also good at reading people and analyzing patterns, which is what makes a good Chaser great. Being the Seeker was boring. Just floating around looking for the Snitch. Sure, you win lots of points and end the game, but Chasers have all the _fun_.”

He nods back, his mouth tugging halfway into a smile. “I was a Beater, my last two years. I tend to agree with you there.”

She gives him a once-over, as if sizing him up. His build is large, powerful, if running a bit to fat these days. A classic Beater. 

“Is that how you broke your nose?” She arches an eyebrow, her inquiry casual, but he appreciates that she’s able to tell his nose has been broken. Not that it’s not obvious, to those with eyes to see, but a shocking number of juniors he’s met over the years haven’t seemed to have any eyes at all, so. 

“The first time, yeah,” he replies, and doesn’t elaborate. She lets it lie, and he likes her better for it. She’s sharp, quick, but not prying, not tugging at all his loose threads to see if she can unravel him. Mess that he knows he is, Strike appreciates it. 

“What made you want to be an Auror?” he asks after they sit in silence for a moment. Robin doesn’t seem surprised; she must have been expecting this question. It seems almost cheap to ask, but he finds that he really does want to know.

If she’s in it for revenge, he needs to know now. There’s no room for private vendettas in this line of work, and especially not now. Aurors need to be able to evaluate situations with minds clear from prejudice or personal feeling. 

“You’re not going to believe me, because no one does,” she says. “But I’ve wanted to be an Auror since I was a little girl.”

“Really,” Strike says, neutrally. He finds, to his own surprise, that he might just believe her after all. 

Robin seems to take his neutrality for the disbelief she was expecting. “When I used to play-act with my dolls, I always killed one of them off and had my favorite try to solve the murder. My mum thought I was the most morbid child on the face of the earth, but it wasn’t the murder I loved, it was the process of solving it. When I found out that Aurors get to solve real crimes for a living— well, I made my mind up, right off, that I was going to become one. I think I was nine years old.”

And Strike can see it, that passion, burning beneath her skin. He prods her, just a bit more. 

“So you want to solve crimes, then?”

“No— well, yes, of course I do,” she says, twisting her fingers into the fabric of her robe. “Unraveling a mystery, figuring out people’s motivations, it’s fascinating. But it’s also about— justice. I want to make sure that people who need help get it, and people who hurt others face consequences for their actions. There’s been precious little of that, these past few years. I wanted to help make some more.”

He likes her, this Robin, against his own will and better judgement. He doesn’t need a junior, doesn’t want one, dragging along behind him, slowing him down, but...

There’s something about Robin Ellacott that makes him think she could be a very good Auror, with the right guidance, the right training. And he doesn’t trust many of his colleagues to provide her with that. 

“I know you heard me say I didn’t want a junior,” he says, the decision seeming to arrive fully-formed in his admittedly slightly fogged-up brain. “But as long as you understand what it means to work in this department, I think we might suit.”

She doesn’t cheer or pump her fist, but there’s a relaxation to her that tells Strike how tense she still was until he said that.

“Thank you,” she says, not desperate but relieved. “I was— well, thank you. I’d be honored to learn from you, Auror Strike.”

“Christ,” he says, wincing. “First order of business, never call me Auror Strike again, I hate that. Just Strike will do.”

She nods, biting her lip against a smile. “Then you ought to call me Robin. I’ll respond to Ellacott as well, but if we’re not standing on formalities, I do prefer my given name.”

He nods back, glad that’s settled. “Alright. Second order of business… I need coffee.”

“I can get you some,” Robin says immediately. “How do you take yours?”

“Black is fine,” he says, needing the bitter taste to wash out his mouth, which is still faintly flavored of firewhiskey. “Thanks.”

“Juniors ought to make ourselves useful,” Robin says as she stands. She gives him a tiny grin as she slips out the door, her robes fluttering out behind her. 

The door closes, and Strike reaches up to massage his temples. Merlin, his boss is going to be insufferable when she finds out he's kept Robin on.

**Author's Note:**

> _vulnera sanentur:_ the song-like incantation of a healing spell and counter-curse to Sectumsempra. Translated from the Latin, it means "may the wounds be healed."


End file.
